Londonist Amy Johnson: The Aviatrix Who Made History At Croydon, Then Mysteriously Disappeared In an extract from her book, Magnificent Women and their Revolutionary Machines, Henrietta Heald celebrates aviatrix and engineer, Amy Johnson. Johnson in her Gipsy Moth leaving Australia for Newcastle, 14 June 1930. Image: public domain Amy Johnson's Airspeed Oxford aeroplane mysteriously plunged into the icy-cold Thames estuary near Herne Bay in Kent in January 1941. The circumstances of her death, at the age of 37, caused a storm of controversy that still refuses to die down. According to the official record, neither the body of this highly experienced airwoman nor the wreckage of her plane has ever been found.